Teaching Writing - Week 11 - Teaching Genre with the Teaching-Learning Cycle

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 11 of the course Teaching Writing for the Bachelor's in English Teaching at ULACIT in term IIC 2023. Today we will explore the topic of genre and experiment with an instructional cycle that can help raise students' awareness of the purpose and organizational features of a particular text type. We will also take time to review your second lesson planning assingment.

Today's Goals:

• Demonstrate the design features of your process writing lesson plan.
• Define the concept of genre and its importance in reading and writing instruction.
• Participate in a demonstration lesson following the Teaching-Learning Cycle.

Guiding Questions:

• What are the benefits and challenges of following a process approach to writing instruction?
• What are text genres and how are they connected with social purpose and context?
• How can the Teaching-Learning Cycle help students develop genre competence?

Task 1: Lesson Plan Walkthrough - Process Writing Lesson Plan

This week you were asked to write your second lesson plan. Let's take a moment to review what you created.

• Example: Walk us through your plan.
• Strengths: Tell us what you think are the strengths of taking a process approach to writing instruction.
• Challenges: Tell us the challenges you faced while creating the plan or potential challenges you foresee for teacher or students who will follow the plan.

• Additional Considerations: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Genre and the Teaching Learning Cycle

Let's take some time to explore the topic of genre, its importance, and strategies to teach it.

• Initial Concepts: Read the quote below from the beginning of your study guide and define in your own words what genre is and why it is important.

• Quote: “Teachers who take a genre orientation to writing instruction look beyond subject content, composing processes and textual forms to see writing as attempts to communicate with readers. They are concerned with teaching learners how to use language patterns to accomplish coherent, purposeful prose. The central belief here is that we don’t just write, we write something to achieve some purpose: it is a way of getting something done (Hyland, pg. 18).”

• Text Analysis: Teaching genre involves changing the way we think about texts by training ourselves and our students to be perceptive analyzers of texts to identify their purpose and typical organizational patterns. You were asked to complete an analysis in your study guide to identify the mode, context, purpose, tone, organization, and language features of two genres. What genres did you analyze and what did you discover?

• Definitions and Orientations: These continue by anlayzing two more quotes from the study guide which help contribute to our growing definition of genre.

• Quote: “…genres are typical configurations or arrangements of text patterns that emerge (and change) over time in a cultural/social context. They are socially purposeful and created in order to achieve particular types of meaning (that is, they are functional in that context) (Burns, pg. 95).”

• Quote: “Genre pedagogy is underpinned by the belief that learning should be based on explicit awareness of language, rather than through experiment and exploration, so teachers provide students with opportunities to develop their writing through analyzing expert texts (Hyland, pg. 22).”

• Activity 1: Discuss these questions with your partner. Then move on to the next activity.

• Have you ever received a rejection letter or email?
• If so, what did it say? If not, what do you think a letter like this should contain?
• Who would probably send a rejection letter?
• When would the letter be sent?
• What should the tone of the letter be?
• How does the writer probably want the reader to feel?
• What is its purpose? What details does it need to express and why?

• Activity 2: Click on your group worksheet below and follow the instructions in the document.

• Group Worksheet: CLICK HERE

Task 3: Lesson Plan 3 - Genre Writing Plan

Let's finish today's class by previewing your third and final lesson planning assignment. 

• Assignment Guidelines: CLICK HERE

References:

Burns, A. (2016). Functional Approaches to Teaching Grammar in the Second Langauge Classroom. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Teaching English Grammar to Speakers of Other Languages (pp.84-105). Routeledge.

Hyland, K. (2003). Second Language Writing. Cambridge University Press.